Daily Lumina News 061622

For decades now, men have trailed women in college completion. Some campus leaders are creating dedicated programs to retain more men, hiring student success coaches, and even holding pop-up advising sessions in the gym.
But much more needs to be done, experts say. And the pandemic, which has led to a disproportionate enrollment decline among male students, is expected to further deepen the divide.

Despite enrolling more low-income undergraduate students than any other University of California campus last year, UC Riverside is also the least-funded UC campus.
Some policymakers are pushing to include hundreds of millions of dollars for UC Riverside and several other campuses with historically less funding in the upcoming state budget that begins next month. Supporters are now waiting to see if Gov. Gavin Newsom agrees.

A short-lived program in the early 2000s allowed married couples to consolidate their student loans for a lower interest rate. But there was a fundamental flaw: The program had no way to separate the initial loans once merged. Even in cases of divorce or domestic violence, these debts cannot be unraveled.
Now, many borrowers are missing out on thousands of dollars in loan forgiveness through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Ahjhané Blackwell landed employment via an apprenticeship right out of high school through the Talent Pipeline Project, a partnership between Pennsylvania school districts and some 50 companies.
The effort is part of a concerted push to more precisely tailor career and technical education programs to both local workforce needs and student interests.

As a small child, Jocelyn Casanova, now 26, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her parents through the Texas desert. Today, she is a software engineer in downtown Raleigh. It’s a job she was able to achieve and accept because of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
In this interview, Casanova shares her hopes and fears for the future of DACA.

Across California, graduating seniors are looking forward to moving beyond high school years dominated by COVID.
But will the newly minted adults, many who fell behind academically and socially, be ready for college and careers after a pandemic dramatically shortened their high school experience? Of the 12 students EdSource has been following this year, five are going to community colleges, six to universities, and one is deciding whether to start a job.